A Martial Artist's Life is Fraught with Trouble
by Crescent Pulsar
Summary: Some time has passed since the failed marriage plot, and Ranma's living in a new house with his parents. Just when things have calmed down enough, and he's ready to tell Akane how he feels, fate decides to toss the mother of all monkey wrenches into his life.
1. Preface and Prologue

**Preface**

Seeing as I'm currently being distracted by video games (since I haven't played any in a while, and I've got a few new ones recently), I thought I'd go ahead and upload one of the stories from my site while I'm not working on anything. I chose this one since it leaves off at a decent stopping point.

I'm not sure how many are familiar with To Love-Ru, but I ran with this idea because I find it and Ranma 1/2 highly compatible, fan-fiction-wise. (Don't expect much of anything ecchi from me, though.) Also, this is one of those ideas that doesn't feature Ranma-chan (yes, I do have those), so if that's what you were expecting... Sorry; not this time. Of course, considering such characters as Lala and Ren/Run, some highlighting of Ranma-chan is going to be inevitable at some point.

I'd like to point out that the To Love-Ru side of things is based on the manga, as it and the anime are different in both minor and major ways. If you're not familiar with the series in general, don't worry: I'm going to be following the storyline of the manga fairly closely (for the most part), so there shouldn't be much of anything for anyone to fill in as if they should know it already.

Also, if you see an underlined word, that means I gave a definition for it at the bottom of the chapter that it appears in.

**Prologue**

A young woman with long, pink hair, who wore an outfit that was too strange for any normal setting on Earth, took a step back onto the ledge of the building that she had been chased to. Being that it was night, it would have afforded her a nice view of the city lights; that is, if her current situation hadn't been so serious.

Before her stood two men dressed in black suits, dress shoes, blue ties and shades. The first of the two had close-cropped black hair, and was both taller and stronger-looking — not to mention more serious-looking — than his companion. Said companion had his blond hair slicked back, a goatee, and a scar that ran vertically across his left eye. He also wore an easy grin.

The bigger one of the two, now that they were no longer in pursuit of her, decided to speak first. "We've finally found you. Who would have thought you'd run this far..."

"But, enough of this game of tag," the other man said. "Why don't you come along with us like you should?"

The young woman glanced down the side of the skyscraper, toward the street far below her, as the high altitude gusts tossed her hair and fluttered her skirt to and fro. She could fly, so she didn't feel like she had been trapped, but now that she had been found she hadn't been able to outrun her pursuers. Even if she continued to run, it would likely continue to be as unproductive as it had been since the moment that they had spotted her.

She needed to lose them. Fortunately, unlike the other times that she had been caught, she was sure that she had come up with a way to get away from them. Before, she had only focused on escaping their notice so they couldn't follow her, rather than taking measures upon being caught. Even fighting back — once found — had been a temporary solution, and had ultimately failed.

This time, however, she planned on making them think that they had her, then make her escape when their backs were turned. The longer that they failed to notice her absence, the more time she'd have to find a place to hide. More importantly, if her escape route was random, how could they hope to find her if she didn't even know where she would be going herself?

Her plan couldn't have been more perfect.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Ranma let out a sigh of relief — one that transitioned from an octave of the fairer sex to one more befitting of a young man — as he settled into the hot water of the furo. There were some days when he couldn't wait for the end of the day to arrive, so he could be where he was now, relaxing. Not even his father could ruin this moment for him, now that said person spent most of his time at his friend's house in order to avoid being pressured into finding a job by his wife.

As he leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, he began to think about how things had changed ever since Soun's and Akane's marriage plot had failed. At that point his mother had realized exactly how complicated his situation had been, and — while she still expected him to resolve everything — she had thought it best for him to withdraw from the battlefield (so to speak) so he could have some breathing room, in addition to gaining a better perspective on the matter. With that in mind, she had decided that it would be better to find a new place to live.

The new residence in question was a modern, two-story house with three bedrooms and a modest backyard. The furnishings within were a bit more Western than he was accustomed to, though he didn't really have anything to complain about. The platform bed that he now slept on had drawers underneath and a headboard with a bookcase, which was both comfortable and convenient enough for his needs. The living room still had a low table, but it was joined by a sofa and a matching armchair. They only ate in the living room on occasion, eating instead at the table in the kitchen. And while the furo was only big enough to accommodate a single, supined adult comfortably, he figured that it was as big as it needed to be (and a lot better than a shower stall, or a Western bath and shower combination).

He still lived in the same school district, but he didn't see anyone that he knew outside of school all that often because his home was invite-only to many of them. Considering what had happened to their last house, and how frugal his mother could be (despite a few exceptions that he had noticed), it was quite understandable. It also provided the peace and quiet that he needed to evaluate the things in his life at any significant length. Beyond that, he spent most of his time at home, per his mother's advice. He was usually bored as a result, but not unbearably so.

The arrangement had worked, all things considered. With the not-so-notable exception of Tatewaki and Kodachi, particular parties had come to realize that they had acted with poor judgement, and had thus respected the moderated contact that his mother had imposed. Although, for a time, he had given Shampoo and Ukyo the cold shoulder, who had (for the most part) respected his feelings on the matter and exercised some restraint until he had been ready to acknowledge them again. Even then, his relationship with them was still a bit touch-and-go. As for Akane...

Even after three months he didn't know exactly how to feel about what she had done. On the one hand, it hurt to think that she had needed an excuse to marry him, by going along with her father in using the nannichuan as a bargaining chip; on the other hand, that she liked him enough to be willing to go through with getting married at all sent his heart aflutter. The real problem, as he saw it, was that he had the distinct impression that she wanted to hear him admit his feelings for her before she shared her own. It bespoke of a challenge — a confusing one, to be sure, but a challenge nonetheless. The question was: did he want to win it?

It hadn't been until recently, around the beginning of their sophomore year, that Akane had begun to act somewhat distant toward him. They had been getting along as well as could be expected until that point in time, so he hadn't known what to think about her behavior... at first. A few days ago he had realized what it could mean, and that was why he needed a good soak: because the decision that he had to make had been putting a lot of stress on him.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"The answer's obvious," he thought to himself. "I don't feel the same way about Ucchan and Shampoo as I do for Akane. I can't see myself getting married to anyone else but her. Still..."

He didn't really have much of a choice. He could tell that his mother didn't find his indecisiveness, insecurity and reservations to be all that manly, and to a point he had to agree. But he just didn't think that he was ready to commit to such a relationship with someone, in no small part due to the fact that it entailed a lifestyle that he hadn't been prepared for. Before finding out about the arranged marriage, he had never even considered the prospect of settling down with a girl and raising a family; all that he had ever looked forward to was the next martial arts challenge.

In the end, he decided that he should probably tell Akane his feelings at the next given opportunity. He might not be ready for marriage, but he could at least ensure that Akane wouldn't be driven away by doubt. He only hoped that her feelings were mutual, and that they could keep their feelings to themselves until they were ready to show them to the world without consequence. After all, certain people would cause trouble if they were convinced that a marriage between them — of their own volition — was a distinct possibility.

Suddenly sensing something strange, he sat up, opened his eyes and looked around for the disturbance. Noticing the surface of the water bubbling in front of him with increasing intensity, he focused his gaze upon it just as some kind of energy began to arc there. He leapt out of the furo without thinking, a second before something burst and sprayed much of the furo's water all over the room.

After he made his landing, he looked up from where he now knelt and saw a somewhat surprising sight: a girl around his own age was now standing in the furo that he had just vacated. While it wasn't so surprising that a girl would suddenly appear while he was in the furo, her method — as well as the fact that she wasn't someone he knew — had been unexpected.

The girl in question was naked, so he had a very good idea of what her physical proportions were (which were very attractive to his experienced eye). She had lovely green eyes and pink hair that was long enough to cover her posterior, but what really got his attention was what extended from above said posterior: a black, spade-tipped tail.

Despite that last detail, and himself, his cheeks flushed at the sight of her. He was accustomed to seeing attractive girls (including himself, in particular), but even his defenses needed time to adjust to someone new. That was especially the case for anyone whose beauty he put into the same league as Shampoo and his female self, and the girl before him certainly applied.

"Mmmm!" The girl voiced happily, as she stretched an arm above her head. "Perfect escape!"

Her words brought his focus back to the matter at hand, and he felt ashamed for admiring someone other than Akane. (Not that she had much to admire, of course.) Remembering that he was also naked, and considering what he could expect to happen once the girl noticed him, he decided to remain kneeling as he spoke, so he could hide his crotch with his leg instead of using a hand that he may need to use to defend himself.

"Who are you?" He finally spoke up, as he made a conscious effort to focus his gaze above her neckline. "You're not some kind of demon, are you?"

"Hm?" The girl hummed, as she turned aside to face him. Rather than the response that he had expected upon being noticed, their combined nudity didn't seem to bother her at all. In spite of the fact that they were of the opposite sex, and seemingly alone, she brightened at his presence instead of hiding, running, screaming, attacking, showing any fear or anger, or exhibiting any combination thereof. She didn't seem particularly inclined to seduce him, either (which came as a big relief).

"Me?" She responded, as she pointed at herself. "I'm Lala. I come from the planet Deviluke."

Ranma blinked his eyes as he absorbed that information, before he adopted a look of skepticism. "Wait... So you're saying that you're an alien?"

"I guess you could say that, from an Earthling's point of view," Lala replied, as she smiled good-naturedly.

Unconvinced, because of how the girl's tail reminded him of a demon that he'd once heard about, Ranma asked, "Then how did you suddenly appear in here, if you weren't summoned with magic or something?"

Lala obligingly answered by raising an arm and showing him the strange-looking bracelet that she wore, whose shape reminded him of a rabbit. She seemed to take delight in the action. "Ta-dah! I used this, Pyon-pyon Warp-kun, which is my own invention! It may not be able to specify the destination, but it can warp each living unit a short distance!"

"Warp?" Ranma questioned. "As in teleportation?"

With a bob of her head, Lala said, "Yup. I used it from the spaceship's bathroom, and by chance I ended up in yours."

Ranma decided that, until he was sure of the truth, it wouldn't hurt to humor her claim of being an alien. It wasn't that it was too strange to believe (since he'd had a lot of experience with things that the normal, everyday person usually didn't believe in): he just didn't want to believe that he had encountered his first alien until he had enough proof.

Aside from that, there was another matter that he could address. "From the bathroom? Why would you do that?"

Lala became a bit subdued in response to his question, and turned her gaze away from his. "Well... I'm on the run, you see? I thought I'd be safe on Earth, but my pursuers were able to catch me. They were about to take me away in their spaceship..." Her eyes fell upon the bracelet that she wore. "If I hadn't used this bracelet I'd probably be..."

With a sigh, Ranma stood up carefully and turned his back on the so-called alien as casually as he could, in order to avoid giving her a free show. (Much to his relief, she didn't try to spy his privates.) He knew that he was likely going to regret his decision to help her, but he couldn't ignore her plight in case her situation turned out to be real.

"My name's Ranma," he told her, before he stepped up to the door that connected the furo to the changing room and opened it. "And if you're going to stay here for any length of time, you're going to need something to wear."

Lala perked up at what was intimated and followed him into the changing room with a bit of a skip in her step. "Can I really hide out here?"

"You're in trouble, right?" Ranma answered as he took two towels from a towel rack. He handed one to Lala before he took the other and secured it around his waist. Normally he would have dried himself off before donning a change of underclothes, but that was when he wasn't in the presence of a girl that he'd only met a few minutes ago. "What kind of person would I be if I were to turn a blind eye to someone in need? Besides, it's my duty as a martial artist."

By that time Lala had finished tying her towel around her torso, at which point — after adjusting her breasts a bit — she returned her full attention to Ranma and happily said, "I'm so glad you're the one I dropped in on, then! I'll try not to be too much trouble during my stay."

Ranma brushed the gratitude aside with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry about it; it's no big deal."

In reality he had some reservations about the whole thing, but he couldn't pass up the chance to look good. It wasn't that he was anything less than a good person, as far as he was concerned: he just liked feeling appreciated. Unfortunately, though he could admit that he deserved it at times, he felt that he was rather underappreciated by his peers.

After picking up his boxer shorts and undershirt, he gestured for Lala to follow him before he led her to the living room, where his mother was watching a movie on TV. Coincidentally, it was showing a scene where an alien woman, Ms. Excision, was telling Mr. Cattle that she had to return to her home planet and couldn't take him with her. His mother appeared to be rather engrossed as the drama of their emotional farewell played out.

"Mom?" Once he had her attention, after addressing her several more times, he motioned toward Lala and said, "This is Lala."

"Hi, Ranma-mama!" Lala cheerfully interjected as she raised a hand in greeting.

"She's an alien who ran away to Earth," Ranma went on casually, "and happened to find her way here."

His mother, Nodoka, blinked her eyes a few times in response.

Seeing that she was at a loss for words, he continued. "I said that she could stay here and hide from whoever's after her, so I'm going to set up the guest room and find some clothes for her to wear."

Nodoka simply nodded her head and said, "That's fine, dear."

It was some time after her son and the girl (who had been referred to as being an alien) had left the room that she shook herself out of her stupor. She felt embarrassed for having failed to act as a proper hostess, so she turned off the TV, got up, and went into the kitchen. Alien or not, they had a guest who might care for some refreshments.

"And why would she need clothes?" She wondered.

Upstairs, Lala had been told to wait outside of Ranma's bedroom while he got himself properly dried and dressed. When he was finished, he came out wearing the boxer shorts and undershirt that he'd had with him, with the towel hanging from his neck. Without preamble, he led her down the hall to the next room, which had been reserved for guests.

While the room wasn't dusty (due to his mother's thorough efforts), the air inside was rather stale. So, the first thing that he did upon entering was to open up the window, to allow the night air to freshen things up. Being that it was mid-Spring, and that there was a light breeze, the air was a bit on the cool side — especially while their skin was still moist. But if it bothered either of them, neither showed any sign that it did.

"You should be able to find something that will fit you in there," Ranma said, as he pointed at the room's sole furnishing, a dresser that contained some of the clothes that his mother had bought for "Ranko." He didn't know the reason for why she hadn't boxed them up and put them away, or returned them to the shops, but at least they would serve some purpose instead of taking up space that prospective guests might need.

As Lala moved toward the dresser, he went over to the closet and took out one of the two futons that had been stored inside. Once he had it laid out on the floor, a comforter and a pillow soon joined it. When he returned his attention to Lala, to check on her progress, he found her bent over an opened drawer. What he saw made him turn his head away quickly and pinch his nose closed to stem the blood that threatened to flow.

It was then that he heard a female-sounding voice yell, "Lala-sama!"

Almost glad for the distraction, he looked toward the window just as the source of the voice had begun to fly into the room through said window, as it shouted, "Are you alright, Lala-sama!?"

It was at least as big as someone's head, had a black and white color scheme with periwinkle accents, and was humanoid in shape. The coat it wore didn't do that shape any favors, however, and made it impossible to determine its gender beyond hearing its voice. Likewise, its white head was round and featureless, save for a pair of whorl-shaped eyes. Beyond that, it wore a red tie that was yellow at the end, boots, and had a pair of bat wings on its back whose design belied the thing's ability to fly. And its outstretched arms were topped by hands that had pad-like features on its palms and the tips of its fingers.

There was only one response that he could give at the sight. "What in the—"

"Peke!" Lala cheerfully exclaimed, as she caught said thing in a hug. "Thank goodness! You managed to escape safe and sound, too!"

"Yes!" Peke replied in kind. "Luckily, the spaceship hadn't left the atmosphere!"

Ranma observed what appeared to be a friendly reunion. But what really caught his attention was that there now seemed to be a second... individual telling the same story about making an escape from a spaceship. And while the thing named "Peke" looked strange enough to qualify as something potentially alien, he still had his reservations about believing it.

It was at that moment that Peke noticed him. It pointed a finger at him and asked, "Lala-sama, who's that dense-looking Earthling?"

"Hey!" Ranma objected.

"He lives here," Lala replied. "His name is Ranma, and he was nice enough to allow me to hide here for a while."

Then she turned to Ranma and smiled. "This, here, is Peke."

"Nice to meet you," Peke said with its hand raised in greeting, sounding a little chastened.

"She's a multi-purpose costume robot that I invented," Lala added.

"Costume robot?" Ranma wondered aloud, just as Lala tossed her towel aside. He hurriedly turned his head away from her naked backside and thought, "Geez; I think she might have less feminine modesty than I do!"

"I leave it to you, Peke!" He heard Lala say.

"Roger!" Came the response.

A flash of light caught his attention, so he couldn't help looking out of the corner of his eye to see what was going on. But whatever had happened had transpired so fast that he only saw the end result of it: with Peke amiss and Lala completely dressed in a skin-tight outfit that was reminiscent of what her costume robot had been wearing. Said outfit was all one piece from her neckline to her feet, and the only part that didn't hug her like a second skin were the sleeves that puffed out at the shoulders and broadened from the elbow to the wrist. The outfit also had a two-tiered skirt that reached her knees, though it was more for show than modesty since it was open in the front, which left the crotch of her form-fitting outfit exposed. It was all topped off by a large hat that looked like Peke's head (which included the whorly eyes), except for the fact that the bat-like wings had relocated to it.

He was reminded of that battle dougi, and hoped that Lala's costume robot wouldn't turn out to be just as troublesome. The last thing that he needed was to have one of those things around to give him a headache. And there was no telling what a talking one might be capable of doing.

"Ta-dah!" Lala pronounced, who struck a pose in order to make a show out of what Peke was capable of doing.

"Is it too tight, Lala-sama?" Peke asked, with Ranma correctly attributing the source of the voice to the hat.

Lala mentally inventoried what her sense of touch was telling her before she gave a hum of approval. "It's perfect. I'm so glad that you came here so quickly, Peke! If you weren't around, I may not have found any decent clothes to wear!"

For some reason, Ranma recalled the time that he had borrowed some of Akane's clothes, and how she had reacted to his comments about how they had fit him — her, at the time. He shouldn't be feeling like Akane had at the moment, surely; Lala had just made an innocent comment. Yet that didn't stop an eyebrow from ticking a few times.

Then Lala returned her attention to him and merrily asked, "Well? Don't I look great, Ranma?"

"What?" Was Ranma's response, as he returned his attention to the here and now. It didn't take him long to come to the conclusion that her outfit was weird, and thought that any one outfit in his girl form's small wardrobe would be superior. Not that he would say that to her, since it would likely give her the wrong idea unless he told her about his curse beforehand. "Oh. Sure."

Now that one immediate problem had been addressed, Peke decided to bring up a more relevant issue. "What will you do now, Lala-sama? Will it really be alright to hide here?"

Lala crossed her arms confidently. "Of course! The idea is to wait here until they give up their search of this planet and decide that I might have escaped the solar system. So long as they don't have a means to trace me here, they shouldn't be able to—"

She was cut off by the arrival of two familiar men wearing black suits, who had rushed in through the window one after the other. Ranma tensed upon their appearance and prepared for a fight. He noted their tails, whose tips took the shape of arrow heads instead of Lala's spade. He didn't need to see the frustration on Lala's face, as she glared at the owners of said tails, to know that they were her pursuers.

"...Find me," Lala finished, her tone strained.

"What a bother," the man with blond hair said, who sounded irritated. "I should have tied you up so you couldn't roam around so freely."

Lala closed her eyes and appeared to calm down, though her knit brow said otherwise. "Peke..."

"Y-yes?" Came the costume robot's nervous response.

Lala opened her eyes and gave a half-lidded stare. "Didn't I tell you over and over again to make sure that you're not being followed?"

"...Yes." Was the pathetic-sounding reply.

Lala threw her hands up into the air and yelled, "Sheesh, you witless robot! Now everything's gone down the drain!"

"I'm sorry..." Peke apologized in a small voice.

"Well," said the dark-haired man impatiently, "are you prepared to come along with us, now?"

"La-Lala-sama," Peke spoke up, sounding reserved from being scolded but hopeful in her ability to help. "Why not use your bracelet again?"

Lala made no move to comply with the men in front of her. "I can't... Each time I use it, I need a whole day to replenish the spent energy."

Apparently not liking that general line of thought, the blond man lost his patience, grabbed her by the arm, and angrily shouted, "Let's get going!"

"No!" Lala yelled, as she struggled to free herself. "Let go of me!"

It didn't take the blond man long to maneuver her into a headlock. While she tugged at the arm around her neck with the only hand she had available, she tried to pull free by using the floor as leverage. However, all that accomplished was a bit of shuffling and stomping around, which got her nowhere. And even if she did manage to escape him, the other guy stood close by to assist his partner in case one of them wasn't enough to subdue her.

In the kitchen downstairs, Nodoka looked up at the ceiling, wondering what was causing all of the thumping and bumping sounds. After a moment her face lit up, as the girl from earlier's toweled state (along with her son's) and need for clothes began to make sense. Her son was so manly!

As for Ranma, he hadn't been idle ever since the two intruders had arrived; not mentally, anyway. There had been a time — not too long ago — when he would have rushed in without thinking, but the past few months had put him into the habit of thinking about his actions more often. After all, he had issues to resolve, rather than complicate or add on to.

And that was the problem. The two men who had come to get Lala looked like thugs from some kind of criminal organization, or possibly the type of government agents who did secretive, dirty work. Even if they weren't aliens, getting involved could prove to be a lot of trouble. It would have been one thing if the encounter had taken place on some random street or alleyway, but right where he _lived_? That was just _asking_ for a return visit.

In the end, however, he simply couldn't stand by and allow someone to be abducted right in front of him. Besides which, the last time that he had to save someone, after they had been abducted, they had almost died in the process. He hadn't been there to prevent their abduction in the first place, but he knew that he would have tried had he been present. And while he didn't know Lala nearly as well as Akane, it would still weigh on his conscience if he did nothing.

So, when Lala managed to bite the arm that was around her neck, thus releasing its hold, he acted. He took the moist towel that hung from his neck and snapped the end of it into the blond man's face, which made him release Lala's arm in surprise. When the other man looked in his direction, he threw the towel into his face and raced between him and his partner, taking Lala's hand in the process and pulling her along as he made his way toward the window. By the time the two men had recovered, they had already leapt through it.

"Hey! Come back here!" They heard one of the men shout, from within the room that they had just vacated.

Lala found herself being carried in Ranma's arms as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, sometimes skipping over one entirely. Not only was this an unexpected development, but she hadn't thought that a human was capable of such a feat. Even so, she didn't expect him to get away from their pursuers, or to prevent them from taking her once they caught up with them.

He had been nice to her so far, so she was worried about his wellbeing. She had to know why he had put himself at risk, since she had only expected him to help her stay hidden. "Ranma... Why did you—?"

"Because it was the right thing to do," Ranma interjected, as he continued to focus on where he was going. "I couldn't let them do what they wanted just because it might be dangerous. Besides," he smiled self-deprecatingly, "a martial artist's life is fraught with peril. You _could_ say that I was asking for it, what with being a martial artist and all."

He eventually found himself running down a bench-lined pathway within a park, leading Lala by hand instead of carrying her. Since he had been unable to outrun the two men by rooftop, he figured that the next best thing was to choose a good, wide-open and unpopulated area at which to fight them off. Seeing as they had been able to keep up with him, he reasoned that the potential for collateral damage was too high to fight on the street (much less the rooftops) if it could be helped.

When a ten-wheeled box truck was sent flying over his head, to land some distance in front of where he was going, he stopped running instead of jumping over it, deciding that their current location was good enough for their fight. And judging by the strength that would have been required to throw the truck so far, he had judged his opponents' abilities well, who might actually be able to present a bit of a challenge. It was hard to say for certain, at that point, since he could have done it, too (if he'd really wanted to expend that kind of energy, that is).

After he turned around to face the two men that were walking toward them, while at the same time maneuvering Lala so that she would be behind him, one of the men glared at him as they said, "Stay out of this, Earthling!"

Ranma folded his arms and grinned cockily. "You'll have to make me."

The two men ceased their approach and looked at each other. After what appeared to be a silent exchange, the dark-haired man nodded to the blond, who turned his attention to Lala and began to speak to her calmly. "Lala-sama, I beg you to stop trying," he paused, and raised his voice to express both his anger and frustration as he said, "to run away from home!"

"No way!" Came Lala's resolute response.

"You heard her," Ranma added in support. "She doesn't..." He trailed off, as the particulars of the man's words began to filter into his brain. "Wait, what?"

"I've had it!" Lala continued. "I don't care about being an heir, but I'm so sick of meeting suitors every day!"

"But, Lala-sama," the blond tried to argue, "this is your father's will."

Before Ranma could get upset about sticking his neck out for a runaway, the rest of what had been said had given him a better perspective on the matter. Actually, it sounded quite familiar: a father's child was an heir to something, and whatever plans he had for them required him to marry his child to someone. Considering how he'd tried to run from his own arranged marriage (at first), he could actually empathize with Lala. But what kind of heir was she, to have people referring to her with the "-sama" honorific?

Lala pulled out a hand-held device that Ranma might have recognized as a mobile phone had he been more familiar with them. As it was, the clamshell-style of mobile phone was rather new on Earth, and it would be some time yet before mobile phones were as small and had a video display, so he could be forgiven for giving her device a questioning glance.

"This has nothing to do with papa!" She replied, before she flipped open her D-Dialer and pressed a sequence of buttons. When she pressed the final button, she exclaimed, "Discharge! Go-go Vacuum-kun!"

Much to Ranma's surprise, a giant, octopus-looking thing came out of the device. It had to be as big as the truck that was lying on its side nearby, and yet it had come out of something no bigger than the user's hand. In fact, both its size and sudden appearance had been enough to knock him off of his feet with an undignified yelp.

"Damn!" The blond-haired man cursed. "Another one of Lala-sama's inventions!"

"Now! Suck 'em up!" Lala directed.

The leaf shutter in Vacuum-kun's tubular-shaped mouth opened up and it proceeded to apply suction. It was so strong that the two men who had been after Lala were quickly lifted off of their feet and sucked into it, where their screams were silenced.

Ranma was suitably impressed. "That's some vacuum cleaner..."

But then he noticed that other things around him, like trashbins and benches, were being sucked up, too. In addition, he began to feel an ever-increasing tug on his own body, and his admiration changed to alarm. However, before he had a chance to do anything, the increasing suction had picked him up and he began to fly toward Vacuum-kun along with a lot of other things from the area.

"Hey!" Ranma yelled, as he spun around in a vortex while trying to avoid being hit by various objects. "You can shut it off, now!"

Lala, who had used the anti-gravity wings on her hat to fly away from the suction's effective range, couldn't hear him over the noise that her invention was making. Nevertheless, she was aware of the problem, and held a hand to her cheek as she tried to come up with a solution.

"W-what do we do, Lala-sama?" Peke asked.

"Er..." Came Lala's initial response, before she noticed how Vacuum-kun began to bulge in an unnatural fashion. "Uh..."

Since she couldn't remember how to use her invention, she could only give Peke the obvious — and ultimately unhelpful — answer. "I guess we should stop it?"

When Ranma figured out that what was about to happen was inevitable, he began to complain. "How come this sort of stuff always happens to—"

At that moment he entered Vacuum-kun's mouth, which — coincidentally — coincided with its capacity limit being reached. That being the case, Vacuum-kun exploded, and he was shot out of its mouth like a bullet from the barrel of a gun. Fortunately, with the energy of the blast being released in an unfocused manner, there hadn't been enough force to launch him very far.

Lala found him hanging from a tree branch by the back of his undershirt a minute later. She had the good grace to rub the back of her head in embarrassment as she floated in front of his dangling body. "Er... I'm so sorry! It's such an old invention that I forgot how to use it."

Ranma lifted his head up and gave her a tired look, because even when he received the seldom apology it usually didn't mean anything to the person giving it. Either the person giving it didn't mean it, or it was meant to put him into a false sense of security so they could take advantage of him in some way. That's what he came to expect, even though — in this instance — he really should have asked her why she had needed to hide in the first place.

Lala either didn't notice his expression, or didn't care, as she gratefully said, "But, thank you, Ranma. I was so glad when you defended me!"

Ranma regarded her with a searching look before he dropped his head and released a sigh. Not only couldn't he tell if she meant it or not, but it had become too uncomfortable to look at her smiling face. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the ground that was thirty feet below him, and decided to get down from his involuntary perch. A few seconds later, he made a casual landing and dusted himself off.

Lala flew down and landed beside him, a curious look on her face. "Are you really a human?"

Ranma gave her an odd look. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because I didn't think that humans were capable of doing what I've seen you do," Lala answered.

Ranma flicked his pigtail over his shoulder and smirked, taking her comment as a compliment. "Heh. Well, if someone works hard enough at it, I'm sure they could be as good as I am." He reconsidered his words, since it sounded too easy for someone to reach his level of awesomeness. "Probably."

After Lala removed her wrecked invention from the scene with her D-Dialer, they began to walk back toward the house. Ranma had questioned the wisdom of leaving the two unconscious men behind without doing anything with them, but he was assured that they wouldn't do anything beyond their job description that might make her angry enough with them to have them discharged from service.

Which reminded him to ask for more details regarding her situation. "So," he began in an easygoing manner, "what's the deal with them, anyway? You said something about being an heir?"

Lala pouted. "Yeah. Papa wants a successor to his throne, so he keeps making me see various suitors."

Ranma stopped dead in his tracks. "Wait, did you just say '_throne_?'"

Peke chose that time to remind him of her presence. "Lala-sama is the first princess of Deviluke. Her father, the king, rules over the entire galaxy."

While Ranma was now willing to believe that Lala might — in fact — be of alien origin, being the princess of a kingdom that ruled the entire galaxy was just too much. And, yet, knowing how his luck usually went...

"It wouldn't be so bad if papa actually seemed to care about his choices," Lala continued with a sigh, sounding both frustrated and sad. "But everyone I meet is only interested in ruling the galaxy." Then her face soured. "That, and..."

It took a moment, but Ranma realized what "and" was probably eluding to. Lala was beautiful, after all, and he had a lot of experience himself when it came to the unwanted attentions of men. He couldn't help feeling sorry for her. Even if she wasn't the princess of a kingdom that ruled the entire galaxy, he could at least relate to having a father who put his own needs before that of his child. Especially one that tried to force them to marry someone they didn't like.

That last line of thought made him uncomfortable, so he refocused his attention on Lala and gave her a wan smile. "Well, so long as you're here, you won't have to worry about that, right?"

Lala perked up at that. "You're right!" She gave him a radiant smile. "Thanks again, Ranma! I really appreciate what you're doing for me!"

Ranma scratched the side of his face and turned his eyes away. "Ah, it's no problem..."

When they finally made it back to the house, they entered the same way as they had left: through the guest room window. Between not wanting to worry his mother, and wanting to get some sleep before even contemplating telling her anything, Ranma had only planned to check up on her since the lights downstairs still seemed to be on.

However, when they ventured into the living room, they found her waiting for them with a tea set arranged on the low table. Upon seeing them, she got up and approached her son. The extremely happy look on her face made said son wary of whatever she was about to say; even more so when she laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"I'm so proud of you, Ranma," she said with a beaming smile. When her son had come downstairs all sweaty and with his person in disarray, while the girl wore a costume that could have only been meant for games in the bedroom, she knew that she had been right about what she had heard earlier. "Just be sure to be responsible for what you've done as a man."

"For what I've done as...?" Ranma asked, looking confused, and dreading whatever answer his mother would give him. "What are you talking about?"

* * *

While Ranma tried to clear up a very embarrassing misunderstanding...

The two men that had been tasked with collecting the princess (so that they could bring her back home) had just finished giving their report to their commander on the bridge of his spaceship, despite appearing as if they'd been caught up in an explosion (which they had). His back was currently turned toward them, and with his black cape obscuring everything below the neck the only thing that they could see of him was the back of his head.

"...I see," their commander replied. "You couldn't take care of her by yourselves."

There was a pause before he spoke again. "Very well. I will go down to Earth and get her myself."

"Good grief," he thought to himself, as he glanced at the screen that displayed the underdeveloped planet in question. "What a troublesome princess..."

* * *

Pyon-pyon: jumping sound or action; I forget which.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

As Ranma made his way to school the following morning, using the sidewalk instead of a fence since there wasn't one at his current location, he tried not to think about what had to be one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. To think that he had _two_ parents who could cause him such a degree of mortification... The fact that Lala didn't seem to mind his mother's assumption about them having sex, or tease him about it, offered little in the way of consolation. Actually, wasn't that a reason to worry about it, instead?

Why couldn't he have a normal mother, like everyone else? He just didn't understand her. If it wasn't about him being manly, then he had no real idea of what she expected from him. Well, beyond the fact that she wanted him to settle down with a girl; she was very keen about his interest in the opposite sex. However, her interest didn't seem to be restricted to Akane. He suspected that his mother would be happy no matter what kind of girl he married, so long as said girl was female.

Still, at least he'd made his mother happy last night, even if not for the reason that she had first assumed. After all, saving a girl from being kidnapped — or from anything, really — was an expression of manliness. He supposed that he should be grateful that she measured someone's manliness based strictly on a person's actions and behavior, or else his curse would have been the end of him.

But therein lay a conundrum. While his mother got upset whenever he was caught wearing girls' clothes as a guy (by accident, of course), she didn't seem to mind that he wore them as a girl to begin with. In fact, when he'd worn girls' clothes as a girl during Hanami, as well as during a local festival before that, it hadn't been his own idea: it had been his mother's. He didn't mind doing it, as he'd done it of his own accord on more than one occasion, but that didn't make his mother any less confusing when she encouraged it.

He abandoned that line of thought when he saw Akane appear from around the corner some distance ahead of him, who had begun to wait for the crossing signal to change. She wore the new uniform that had been issued for the school that year, replacing the one that had been used since the early eighties. However, while the style itself was more in line with modern trends, the color selection really took it back. The green plaid wasn't so bad for the girls' short, pleated skirts, or the cream yellow their jackets (partly due to the green bow that was worn at the collar, which added a cute touch), but for the guys... The green plaid pants and the green necktie that went with the cream yellow jacket made one think of an old man from some Western culture, one who couldn't decide whether they were a college professor or a golf player. (And not for the first time did he feel glad for wearing his own clothes instead of the boys' school uniform.)

Regardless of what she wore, however, he was sure that now was his chance to confess to her. The fact that another girl would be living in his house for the time being helped to drive that idea home because he didn't want Akane to get the wrong idea if/when she found out about it. However, he suspected that she wouldn't respond well whether she learned about it before or after he made his confession. She could be really... distrustful like that. Still, it was his hope that she would understand _someday_ — sooner rather than later — if he told her now instead of after the fact, or before she found out herself.

"Hey, Akane!" He called out to her, with a wave of his hand, as he jogged his way over to where she stood.

Akane turned to face him, but continued to hold her school bag in front of herself instead of waving back. It wasn't only due the standoffish act that she'd been employing as of late, but also because she thought that the skirt of her uniform was just a bit too short for comfort: she couldn't even hope to kick anyone without showing off her panties to the world.

She decided to put aside crossing the street for the moment, since Ranma usually didn't do much to raise attention to his presence whenever they met up on the way to school. He was usually already walking beside her before he said anything, much less something that passed as a greeting. It made her wonder if anything of significance had come up, and whether it had anything to do with their relationship. Though she doubted that he would say what she wanted to hear from him on a street corner — out of the blue — while on the way to school.

When Ranma reached her, he stood before her with his chest puffed out, shoulders drawn back, arms akimbo, and a very serious expression on his face. "There's something that I want you to hear."

Akane tilted her head inquisitively while keeping her heart from acting up prematurely; she recognized the signs when Ranma wanted to say something that wasn't easy for him to say. "Yes?"

"Well, you see..." Ranma began, who was already beginning to lose his composure; which was made ever more clear to his fiancée as his deportment changed to reflect it. "Uh..."

"What is it?" Akane patiently prompted.

"I..." Ranma tried again, who looked away and began to fidget with his pigtail.

After a few more false starts like that one, Akane frowned and began to lose her patience. "We're going to be late for school."

Ranma cursed himself mentally, and wondered why it was so hard to say what he wanted to say. He closed his eyes, raised a shaking fist to his chest, and ground his teeth as he put more effort into the task. As such, unlike Akane, he didn't notice a shadow pass over them, or the owner of said shadow as they descended from the sky.

Finally, he was able to get past his pride, embarrassment and shyness. "I... I love you!" With that success, he was able to snap his eyes open and plow onward with the rest of what he wanted to say. "You're the only one I want to," it was at this point that he realized that the person whom his words were being directed toward had not been Akane, "marry?"

"Oh, wow!" Lala exclaimed happily, as she cupped her cheeks with her hands. "You feel the same way, too? Ain't that lovely!" She quickly drew Ranma's head in for a hug. "Then let's get married, Ranma!"

"Whaaaa...!?" The person in question cried out in shock, unable to believe what had just happened. He'd been so focused on the task, so intent on saying the words, that his mouth had outpaced his impaired situational awareness. He didn't have to be a genius to realize that he had probably just accomplished the exact opposite of what he had set out to do. There was no mistaking what Akane's blazing aura and glowing, red eyes meant, after all. And while he was very distressed at that exact moment, he was still able to note that the size of her aura had reached a new record.

Naturally, he panicked. While he tried to struggle out of Lala's grasp (and failed to notice his lack of progress), he tried to reason with Akane. "Wait! It's not...! I mean... This isn't—!"

Unfortunately, whatever he was going to say next — if anything — was interrupted by an uppercut so powerful that it accomplished what his efforts against Lala's alien strength had failed to do. He was sent flying out of her arms and into the pale blue of the morning sky, no doubt into uncharted territory despite a certain pink-haired impediment.

Lala cried out in surprise at this turn of events. Before she could get a clear idea of where and how far Ranma would go, she managed to catch a falling object before it hit her square in the face. After looking the small, cloth-wrapped box over, she realized that she had failed to keep track of the person who had just proposed to her. So, she turned to look for the one responsible for his impromptu leave-taking; but, save for a few footprints that had been melted into the pavement, she found no one.

Having no other recourse to turn to, she decided that it would be best to see Ranma's mother about what he had dropped, and where he had intended to go. It was too late to do anything about his fall, so she could only hope that — as a human — he would be strong enough to escape any serious injury. He'd fared better in the explosion last night than her fellow Devilukians had, so she wasn't _too_ worried.

While she was at it, she could tell his mother the good news.

* * *

At the heart of Tokyo, atop one of the tallest skyscrapers in the area, stood a man who was looking over the city. He appeared to be in his late twenties, possibly early thirties, and had short, white hair and blue eyes. The armor segments attached to his black outfit from shoulders to toe resembled bone, and none stood out more prominently than the large pauldrons that bore what appeared to be red, dome-shaped gems. Behind him fluttered a black cape, which he held close at the waist so the wind wouldn't pull at it from his neck.

"So, this is Earth," he thought, as he looked around. "Like the rumors said, this planet is rather uncivilized."

Despite that, he didn't think that he'd have any problem finding his destination. From the report that his subordinates had given him, he knew exactly where the princess was located. While he could have gone there directly, he didn't feel the need to rush. Besides which, if the princess decided to flee when he confronted her, it would be a good idea to get the lay of the land first. And if she resisted in a more direct way...

"If I need to, I will make her return by force," he resolved.

* * *

When it was soon to be lunchtime at Ranma's school, Lala left his house and took to the sky with his bento in hand. Using the information that his mother had given her (who now insisted that she called her "mother" as well), she had no problem finding Furinkan high school.

"Found it!" She declared happily. "That's the 'school' Ranma goes to!"

It was at that moment that Peke could no longer remain quiet about the new situation that had somehow developed earlier that morning. "Lala-sama..."

"What is it, Peke?" Lala replied, as she hovered in place.

"Are you really thinking about marrying that dense Earthling?" Came the question.

"I am," Lala answered, seemingly unfazed by the question. "Why?"

Peke sighed. "Lala-sama, you're the princess of Deviluke, whose rulers govern the _entire_ Milky Way galaxy. And, it is this _Earthling_ named 'Ranma' that you want to get married to..."

"It'll be alright," Lala responded, sounding both unconcerned and quite upbeat as she began to fly toward the school. "Just leave it all to me."

Had Ranma been looking out the window, he would have seen Lala's approach from where he sat in his classroom. He hadn't because he was currently slumped over his desk as he snuck yet another peek at Akane, for what could have been the thousandth time. Considering the magnitude of the misunderstanding that had happened earlier, he wasn't surprised to see that Akane was still angry.

His chances of clearing everything up and reconciliating with her were — at present — abysmal. It really weighed upon his spirit. And because no one else had felt it safe to interact with Akane, they had all come to him for answers, which had only made him feel worse. He'd only told them that there had been a misunderstanding and had left it at that, but that had been more than enough to get the rumor mill going. It had also put a smile on Ukyo's face.

However bleak the situation seemed, however, he knew that he had to act — and the sooner the better. Unfortunately, he had lost his nerve whenever an opportunity had presented itself between classes, so he had put it off each time until "next time." Even now, as the lunch bell rang, and after seeing that Akane's mood hadn't changed, he was already thinking about delaying his attempt until after he ate his lunch, with the notion that eating some food would somehow help him in his endeavor.

When he retrieved his school bag and searched it, however, he discovered that his lunch was missing. Knowing that he hadn't forgotten it at home, he realized that it must have fallen out of his school bag when Akane had launched him into the sky. Between his growling stomach and being reminded once again of what had happened earlier, he somehow managed to slump over his desk even more than before.

His self-pity wasn't to last, however, because Daisuke chose that time to slam the classroom door open (to get everyone's attention) and yell at him from the doorway (so everyone could hear him). "Hey, Ranma, what's going on? There's this hot chick looking for ya!"

Ranma heard the snapping of someone's chopsticks in the silence that immediately followed, and he didn't need to look to know who had broken said utensils. If it hadn't been for the urgency of the situation, he might have walked up to the nearest wall so he could drive his head through it a few times. As it was, he needed to prevent another disaster from happening and hope that he could manage some damage control afterward.

So he jumped to his feet, rushed out of the classroom and raced down the hallway, failing to notice that all but Akane had left after him. The stairwell was close by, so he leapt over the railing and dropped to the ground floor from the second floor. From the landing he could see that a good number of third-years — mostly male — were standing around Lala, and most were clearly smitten with her.

But what really caught his attention was the fact that Nabiki was taking pictures of her. Not only was she doing that, but she was directing her movements while she did it... and in doing so found a willing model; an all _too_ willing and happy one, it seemed. The sight made him slap a hand over his face.

"Lala!" He called out to her, trying to stay calm as he began to make his way over to her. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah, Ranma! I found you!" She replied in a sing-song voice, who waved at him with a vivacious blitheness that he began to assume was typical of her. (He also caught a hint of fondness in her voice, which told him — from experience — that something bad was on the horizon, just waiting to happen.) She then raised his bento into view, by the furoshiki's knot. "Here! I brought this over for you!"

Ranma perked up a bit at the sight of it, at the same time that his stomach demanded that he do something very specific with its contents. In that instant, for just a second, he thought that Lala's presence hadn't been as foreboding as he had first thought. Unfortunately, the next person to speak sucked what little optimism he had right out of him, as if with a black hole.

"_So_," Nabiki began in a deliberate tone, as she stared at Ranma intently, "who might your new 'friend' be?"

"Yeah," Hiroshi seconded. "And what is she to you?"

"Er..." Came Ranma's nervous response, when he looked around and noticed how everyone's unwanted attention was on him. With the students from his class now present, and students from other classes having joined his fellow classmates, he was literally surrounded by various types and degrees of scrutiny; which, to his mind, wasn't at all pleasant. In particular, of those present it was Ukyo's hard stare that worried him the most.

However, it did occur to him that now would be a good opportunity to tell everyone about Lala and how he was helping to prevent a most dreadful fate from befalling her, now that he had such a large audience. He'd leave out the fact that she was an alien, as well as the claim that she was a princess, because the former was unnecessary information (that would — in all likelihood — do his explanation more harm than good) and the latter was one detail about her that he didn't have enough evidence for to believe it himself. And once everyone knew what was really going on, word would quickly reach Akane and...

Lala suddenly clutched onto one of his arms with both of her own and happily proclaimed, "I'm Ranma's bride!"

The crowd, predictably, erupted with shock and outrage; but mostly with outrage. As for Ranma, he was — quite understandably — shocked as well, though for an entirely different reason. To him, it seemed that every attempt he ever made to express his feelings to Akane were bound to be utterly ruined somehow. And while the incidents or opposition in the past had eventually been overcome and put behind them, they were beginning to look like mere potholes compared to the sinkhole his current predicament was turning into.

Amongst the murmuring and various unfriendly comments that accompanied the wall of glares, he heard Daisuke say, "Ranma... You... When you've already got Akane..."

"Not to mention Shampoo," Hiroshi added with a growl.

When Ranma heard something metallic being unsheathed, he looked over at Ukyo, who held her peel threateningly as she said, "And what about _me_?"

"Wait!" Ranma replied, as he waved his free hand defensively. "It's all just a big mistake!" Desperate to find a solution, but having nothing available that could conceivably help him save the person who was responsible for the problem in the first place, he turned to the pink-haired alien who was still clinging to his arm. "Go on! Tell 'em!"

Looking forlorn, Lala drew away from Ranma and gave him a sidelong glance as she said, "But, Ranma... You said you loved me. Was that a lie?"

Ranma would have denied it and tried to explain what had happened, but he sensed danger and managed to duck under Ukyo's peel just in time, which (he noticed) had been aimed at his neck. And then he had to make his physical actions a priority in order to dodge the series of attacks that followed, which made it difficult for him to think and thus mount a good verbal defense.

"How could you!?" Ukyo screamed, as she took yet another swipe at him. "It's bad enough that you seem to like Akane more than me, but you never said that you _loved_ her!"

"It's not like that!" Ranma argued, as he continued to dodge Ukyo's impassioned attacks, almost unable to believe how things had so easily gone from bad to worse. Not only had Lala's words aroused Ukyo's ire, but seemingly that of everyone else's, too. The only exception seemed to be Nabiki, who appeared to find his situation amusing.

Not knowing what else to do, he took Lala by the hand, pulled her along with him as he leapt over the crowd, and made a tactical retreat so he could think of a solution to his latest problem. Unfortunately, what could have been half of the school had given chase, with guys and girls alike calling him a pervert, a womanizer, an animal, and an enemy of women. There was even a guy who had said something about him being an obstacle to a rooster (whatever that meant).

"Damn you, Ranma!" A teary-eyed Hiroshi cried out furiously, who was among those leading the angry mob. "You won't get away with this!"

Daisuke, who was running beside him, yelled, "We're men with needs, too, you know! And we're tired of living off of the crumbs!"

Having no trouble keeping up with Ranma's pace, Lala glanced back at their pursuers, confused by the situation and wondering what had happened to cause it. "Did they get angry?"

Ranma wanted to yell at her, to accuse her of being the one responsible for his current predicament, but he grit his teeth and held his tongue. She was just another girl who had fallen for his irresistible charm, after all. Unlike the other girls, however, her interest was based on an honest mistake. The only thing that he could do about it — for the time being — was to keep her nearby, in order to make sure that she didn't cause him any more trouble (and so he could clear up the misunderstanding when he had the opportunity).

Before he could come up with an appropriate response, he ran straight into a wall that had suddenly descended in front of him. Lala crashed into him from behind a split second later, which reduced the force of her collision at his expense. As they collapsed onto their backs, dazed, another wall descended some distance behind them, cutting them off from the others. Then metal shutters rolled down from the ceiling to seal off the windows, which had the additional effect of immersing them in darkness. It was only a momentary consequnce, as it turned out: because two stage lights turned on soon afterward, and shone upon the center of the wall that they had crashed into.

"Are you alright, Lala-sama?" Peke asked, sounding concerned.

"I'm fine," Lala replied casually, as if the accident hadn't happened, or hadn't caused someone (particularly a member of the opposite sex) to lie on top of her. "Ranma? What about you?"

Ranma groaned as awareness returned to him. He'd heard someone say something, but he couldn't tell exactly what had been said. But the significance of what he had heard was quickly eclipsed by what he realized he felt: not only was he lying on top of someone, but his head was nestled between said someone's breasts. Past experience dictated that he should escape such compromising positions post-haste, so he sprung into the air... only to crash into the ceiling.

Lala blinked her eyes confusedly after Ranma landed face-first beside her. She sat up, gave his shoulder a shake, and asked, "Does that mean you're alright?"

"Just peachy," Ranma grumbled.

Eventually, they both got to their feet. Their eyes soon adjusted to the dim setting that they found themselves in, though the first thing that they saw — which they couldn't help but notice — was what the two stage lights were illuminating: which turned out to be a picture of the school's principal. It portrayed him being bent over at the waist, as he looked over his shoulder and gave the onlooker a gleaming smile and a thumb's-up. On his (mercifully) clothed rear was an exaggerated pair of lips; and, if its message hadn't been made clear enough, there was also an arrow pointing right at them.

One of Ranma's eyebrows twitched at the sight. He glanced around the enclosed space, noticing a significant number of small, red lights at various locations. There was little doubt in his mind that they were cameras that had been set up to catch someone in the act of kissing the image from multiple angles. In all likelihood, whoever performed the deed would also be assaulted by scissors and/or electric razors. As if he'd fall for something so obvious...

Which was why he was both surprised and a little exasperated when he saw Lala — who was smart enough to build a giant, octopus-looking vacuum cleaner — about to do what only the desperate would resort to doing. With a great deal of temperance, he caught her by the shoulder and slowly pulled her away from the picture on the wall. "Trust me, you don't want to do that."

While Lala gave him a questioning look, he searched for another way out. True, he could have made their escape easy by allowing her to go through with kissing the picture of the principal (for causing him so much trouble), but denying what the principal wanted, in addition to understanding that the whole mess had been caused by a misunderstanding, had been enough to suppress his petty side.

Deciding that the shutters over the windows and the two additional walls had been made to prevent someone from destroying them, he turned his attention to the wall opposite of the shutters. Determined to escape without submitting to the principal's latest scheme, he punched the wall with most of his might. Unfortunately, what had once been forgiving concrete had been changed to stubborn steel, and all his punch had accomplished was a dent the size of his fist. It also made said fist hurt like hell.

As Ranma hopped around in obvious pain, while holding his throbbing hand, Lala watched him with concern. "Are you okay?"

Ranma quickly collected himself in order to make a show of being fine, even though he still had a good minute's worth of hopping around in pain left in him. "Of course! I was just... testing its durability! Yeah, that's it!"

Lala seemed to accept that cockamamie excuse, though Peke — being the more observant of the two — asked, "So, Ranma-dono, have you thought of another way out, yet?"

Ranma figured that the ceiling and floor had been changed along with the wall, so he tried to think of another way out. He felt as if he were forgetting something. After a moment of thought, and a glance at Lala, he noticed that something was missing from her wrist... And then he remembered how she had appeared in the furo last night.

"That's right," he said, as he pounded a fist into the palm of his hand (which made him wince in pain), "you have that bracelet that can teleport people. Some kind of warp-thingy or something."

"Pyon-pyon Warp-kun, you mean?" Lala asked, as she pulled out her D-Dialer.

"Yeah, that," Ranma confirmed. "We can escape with it, right?"

"Of course," Lala answered happily, as Pyon-pyon Warp-kun appeared. She put her D-Dialer away before she placed the bracelet around her wrist. Then she held out her hand to Ranma, who took it. "Ok! I'll be counting on you later, Peke."

"Aye," her costume robot acknowledged.

Without any further delay, Lala activated Pyon-pyon Warp-kun and she and Ranma disappeared in a flash of light. With them gone the shutters and walls retracted into the ceiling, which allowed Peke to leave through an open window. As for the people who had been chasing Ranma, those who had stuck around long enough to see their obstacle removed began to wonder if their prey had been vaporized, when all they saw of him was his clothes (and how they were arranged on the floor).

* * *

Akane, who was the sole occupant of the classroom, continued to poke at her food with the remains of her chopsticks, wondering — and not for the first time since Ranma's declaration of love to that other girl — where things had gone wrong. Acting cool toward him had been producing results, after all. It had been an idea inspired by the time when Shampoo had been wearing the reversal jewel, where he had gone out of his way to win back her attentions.

But what were the chances of a beautiful girl — and one that could fly, no less — coming out of nowhere to land right in front of him when he was about to say the kind of thing that he did? He had to have seen her coming, surely... Unless, of course, his stammering had merely been a delay tactic, seeing as how he'd withheld what he had wanted to say until the exact moment when the other girl had arrived.

It wasn't like her plan could have backfired, so the only logical explanation came down to Ranma being a two-timing, womanizing pervert. Which was hardly news... And begged the question: why did she ever continue to bother with him, anyway?

As if in answer to her question, the space above her desk began to flare with energy before Ranma appeared out of thin air, who was accompanied by a cloud of smoke and a loud popping sound. He proceeded to fall onto her desktop, where he crushed her lunch beneath his back. But that was nothing compared to the fact that he was naked, and _that_ was even less than nothing when a naked girl was added to the equation.

For a moment, Akane felt detached from reality. Seeing Ranma naked was nothing new, and seeing him naked with an equally naked girl was — unfortunately — not uncommon enough. But upon the heels of what had happened on the way to school, seeing a naked girl on top of him was simply too much too soon. The real problem was that she didn't know whether Ranma was adding insult to injury, or if she had fallen asleep and had dreamt this up: because people simply didn't appear out of thin air.

By now, Ranma had recovered enough of his wits from his first experience with teleportation to realize that he was in a compromising position with Lala. With his eyes bulging out in surprise and embarrassment, he somehow managed to slip out from underneath her without making a bad situation worse in his haste. He tried to ask her why he was naked while he looked around frantically, to see if anyone else was around, but only unintelligible sounds came out of his mouth. While in the process of doing that, he didn't look in her direction because — in the case that they weren't alone — he didn't want someone else seeing him seeing her.

Lala found his behavior amusing. "Oh? Didn't you know that Pyon-pyon Warp-kun can only transport living things?"

"How could I have...!" Ranma, who had begun to yell, trailed off when he noticed something right next to Lala, who was now sitting on the desktop that they had arrived upon. "Known..." To his horror, it wasn't just a person, but the last person that he'd want seeing him at that exact moment. "...That." And she was looking directly at him with a gaze that unnerved him.

Lala looked at him questioningly before the sound of a chair's legs scraping against the floor drew her attention to the girl who was now standing beside her, whom she had failed to notice sitting at the desk until just then. She watched as the girl made her way toward Ranma calmly, which made her wonder why he looked so distressed.

"A-A-Akane!" Ranma sputtered, as he held up his hands to ward her off while he backed away from her. Then, realizing his mistake, he lowered one of his hands in order to cover himself. "Th-this isn't what it looks like! I swear! Y-you've got to believe me!"

Akane didn't hear him. Even if she had, she wouldn't have believed him. Not only was she replaying the event of that morning and what she'd witnessed just now over and over again in her mind, but her feelings of betrayal and mistrust had twisted her memory of the events until Ranma's actions seemed convincingly purposeful, even cruel. As far as she was concerned, Hell would freeze over before she forgave him, much less listen to whatever he had to say.

Which is why, when she had him backed up against a window, she put on a false smile and said, "I got the message the first time." Then her rage exploded and she kicked him through the window as she screamed, "So go to hell! I hate you!"

Akane walked away from the shattered window as Lala hurried over to it, her lowered head casting a shadow over her face that managed to conceal the tears in her eyes. However, knowing that she'd need to do something so no one would think that she had been crying, she made her way to the bathroom. Besides, it wasn't like she'd ever shed tears for someone like _him_.

"Ranma, you jerk..."

* * *

Furoshiki: traditional Japanese wrapping cloth.

-Dono: an honorific generally signifying a level of respect between -san and -sama. (Which is putting it simply, as it is more nuanced than that, but it should work well enough here.) If I remember correctly, it has fallen out of common usage, so it might be considered old-fashioned.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Ranma spent what remained of the school day sulking in his bedroom, where he kept himself hidden from both Lala and his mother. While his mother didn't think it a manly thing to do, he felt justified in doing it after the kind of day that he'd had thus far. And if what had happened with Akane hadn't been bad enough, her kick had sent his nude form to the courtyard of an all-girls high school, where he had been treated to a horrifying mix of loathing and lust. Even now he wasn't sure how he had been able to escape in one piece, other than by sheer luck. His only consolation was that the all-girls school in question hadn't been St. Hebereke.

Lala had been looking for him, of course, but he had hid every time she had checked his bedroom because he hadn't been in the mood to deal with her in a calm and rational manner. And it certainly hadn't helped when she had begun to use some dog-looking invention of hers to sniff out his whereabouts. It had taken him the better part of an hour to find a way of masking his scent, all while running around town to avoid being spotted by her. Afterward, about the same amount of time had been spent washing off a concoction of smells from his body. As for the outfit that had replaced the one he'd lost at school, he planned to have it burned when the opportunity presented itself.

By the time that Lala had decided to play a game on the Super Famicom, to pass the time while she waited for him, it was well into the evening and his mother had begun to make dinner. Even though he was rather hungry (from missing lunch), and his mood hadn't really improved that much, he decided that it would be better to deal with Lala before he ate. That way she wouldn't contradict him at dinner, which was when he planned to tell his mother about the misunderstanding and put things right.

When his mother was in the kitchen and Lala was in the process of finding another game to play, he made his move. Fortunately, despite Lala's enthusiastic — and thus somewhat loud — greeting, he managed to lead her outside without drawing his mother's attention. With a few simple words to express his intentions, he had no trouble bringing her to a place where they could talk. The bank of the canal was close enough to a railway to require speaking a bit louder whenever a train passed by, but it was close to his house and private enough during the early nighttime hours to suit his needs.

As he prepared to say what needed to be said, Lala stood by with her arms crossed behind her back, which she had facing him while she took in her new surroundings in a carefree manner. Though she didn't seem all that clueless about the situation when she asked, "What's wrong, Ranma? Saying, 'let's talk outside,' and sounding so serious all of a sudden." Before he could reply, she made it apparent that she had another concern on her mind when she looked over her shoulder and gaily added, "Let's hurry back so we can play a game together."

"Look," Ranma began calmly, as he tried to ignore Lala's current behavior while also trying to not think about how she might react to what he had to say, "I wanted to talk to you alone so we could straighten something out." He paused to take a calming breath, and also to make sure that he had her undivided attention. "Like I said before, what happened this morning was a mistake. What I'd said had been meant for someone else, not you."

He relaxed upon being able to admit that much, though he found Lala's thoughtful expression — after she had turned around to face him — very curious... on the verge of worrisome. He'd expected her to be upset to some degree or another, as getting a calm and rational response was rather something novel in his experience. Any of the other four girls that he knew would have been in tears, or attacked him either physically or verbally in anger — perhaps even two or three of those things at the same time. But Lala was proving to be made of a completely different mold of girl from what he was used to.

"So you don't love me, Ranma...?" Lala finally replied, who wasn't showing any sign of how she was feeling, much less how she would react upon getting confirmation.

Not knowing what to expect from her, Ranma tried to act nonchalant about it. "That's right, so—"

"I'm fine with it," Lala interjected with a chipper smile, as she raised her hands to her chest and clenched them determinedly, "so it doesn't really matter."

Ranma hadn't expected that kind of a reply, so he could forgive himself for the few seconds that he spent staring in confusion before he shook his head and vehemently argued, "Of course it matters!"

Peke, whose whorl-eyed face managed to express some degree of aggravation, chose that time to enter the conversation. "Lala-sama..."

Lala looked up at her hat. "Yes?"

"I think I'm beginning to see your true intentions..." Peke voiced her suspicion, more for Lala's sake even though it had been intended for Ranma's ears.

Lala turned her back on Ranma and clasped one hand on her hat while she whispered loudly behind the other with an angry tone. "Hey! What nonsense are you talking about, Peke!?"

"True intentions!?" Came Ranma's response, worried that he might be dealing with someone who was like Nabiki. "What's that supposed to mean!?"

Lala turned back around, her smile reapplied. "Nevermind that. Let's get along, now, Ranma!"

"Answer my question!" Ranma demanded.

He was so intent on trying to figure out and resolve the latest development with Lala that he didn't notice someone approaching from the embankment on his right until he heard them shout, "Lala-sama!"

The person in question turned to face the new arrival and — with some evident surprise — exclaimed, "Zastin!"

It only took a second of looking at the man bearing that name for Ranma to conclude that he had just encountered yet another character. What with the armor and cape, for all he knew the guy could have been plucked right out of a swords and sorcery setting. Considering the bone and black theme he had going, he was probably a villain — one that dogs found savory, apparently, if the one gnawing on the man's calf was any indication. He absently noted the man's tail, which was like those of the other two men except its length appeared segmented instead of smooth.

He also noticed that he looked a bit harried. But it didn't take long for him to collect himself, by which time he chuckled lightly and said, "It has been a long day for me. Arrested by the police, chased by a dog, getting lost on the road... It's an underdeveloped planet, after all."

"In other words," Ranma thought to himself, "you're an idiot with a bad sense of direction. Great. As if having one person like Ryoga around wasn't enough already. Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"But!" Zastin suddenly exclaimed, in a dramatic fashion. "Enough of this! Let us return to Deviluke together, Lala-sama!"

"No way!" Lala replied, before she pulled down one of her lower eyelids and stuck her tongue out at the person that she was disagreeing with. "I'm not going back! In fact, there's a reason why I can't!"

Zastin remained calm and didn't react adversely to Lala's behavior, no doubt due to being accustomed to it. "...That being?"

Lala pointed at Ranma, without turning her attention away from Zastin, and said, "I have fallen in love with Ranma, who lives _here_. I will marry Ranma and settle on Earth!"

While Ranma was made speechless by her declaration, he wasn't all that surprised after the way that she had responded to him when he had cleared up the misunderstanding earlier (and considering what Peke had eluded to shortly after that). It was depressing, really: to think that there was yet another girl who was only thinking about herself, and willing to take advantage of him in the process. Had there been any room for him to show interest in her before, for seeming somewhat atypical in some ways to what he was used to, he would have been rather disappointed right at that moment. However, considering his prior experience with the other girls in his life, he was more inclined to wonder if he should stop caring and just resign himself to having an unhappy marriage with any one of his prospective wives.

"I see," Zastin said, after he had done some thinking of his own, with his elbow resting in the palm of one hand and his chin being lightly stroked by the fingers of the other. "So that's the case."

Ranma would have normally voiced some kind of objection, but he opted to remain silent since doing so had rarely ever done him any good in the past. In fact, sometimes it just made things worse. And — at the moment — he wasn't in the mood to do anything more beyond feeling sorry for himself; not after what he'd experienced so far that day. Besides, it wasn't like Zastin's response had settled the matter one way or the other: understanding (gullibility, in this case) didn't necessarily mean agreement and/or allowance.

Zastin continued, after a brief look of consideration. "I can tell that your highness deeply cares about the Earthling who tried to save you."

"You just took her word for it," Ranma groused in thought.

"Now that you know the whole story," Lala argued, "you can go back and tell it to papa! I'm not going back, and I don't feel like meeting any more suitors!"

Zastin's demeanor suddenly became more serious. "No. I'm afraid that I cannot do that."

Ranma perked up upon hearing that. Maybe there was some hope, after all?

"I, Zastin, am here on his majesty's orders to take you back home, Lala-sama," Zastin went on. "I will not be able to face him if I am to return now, easily approving of your choice to marry some unknown Earthling."

With a measure of indignance, Lala asked, "What do you propose to do, then?"

Ranma looked on warily as Zastin reached behind his back and said, "Allow me, Lala-sama."

Suddenly, Zastin charged forward and swung down with whatever he had pulled out from behind him. Ranma jumped away, though not soon enough to avoid the flying debri caused by the explosion that immediately followed in the wake of his evasive maneuvering. When he landed, he looked at the spot where he had once stood and saw a long and deep gouge in the ground. Nearby stood the person responsible for it, who was now holding a sword whose blade glowed and hummed with energy.

"I shall be the judge," Zastin declared, as he regarded Ranma with an intense stare, "to see if you are worthy of Lala-sama's hand."

"Aw, man..." Ranma thought, with no small amount of exasperation.

"The one called Ranma," Zastin continued calmly, with his sword at the ready, before he charged forward and yelled, "I will force you to show me your true strength!"

Ranma began to dodge a flurry of sword swipes, bending here and twisting there, and feeling the heat of the blade each time it passed near any part of his body. His mind was racing in order to figure out a solution to his current situation, which had turned out to be so bad as to leave him with a lose-lose dilemma on his hands: either he won to "prove" his worthiness as Lala's future husband, or he could lose and risk having one of his extremities lopped off (if not wind up dead).

Not for the first time did he wonder why things always seemed to turn out so unfavorably for him. How he yearned for those simple days, when all he had to worry about was his idiotic father and improving his martial arts skills. To think that he had once thought any of that as being a burden — he had been so naive back then.

"Damn it!" Ranma thought, becoming frustrated. "I need time to think!"

He decided to use the Saotome "secret technique" to buy himself some time. Of course, when he turned around and ran away, Zastin was of the mind to stay on his heels rather than stand around and wait for his return. So, as Ranma tried to lose him amongst the buildings and other obstacles of civilization, he still had to dodge his attacks on occasion. As a result, a lot of other things got cleaved into pieces in his stead, such as vehicles, the facades of buildings, vending machines, utility polls, and even the briefcase, clothes and hairpiece of some random salaryman.

"Why are you running away, Earthling!?" Zastin called after his quarry. "How can I approve of you if you keep running!?"

Suddenly catching sight of an oncoming car as he passed by a street corner, he leapt high into the air to avoid it. When he saw Ranma stop and look back at him, he assumed that he was checking to see if his trap had worked. As if he couldn't have seen that car coming a mile away...

He descended to the ground in an easygoing manner. "Stop trying to run away to fool me," he said, before glaring at Ranma determinedly and added, "because I will make you fight!"

In reality, Ranma had stopped because he was alarmed by the fact that Zastin was going to land on a railway track while a train was making its way toward them. The last thing that he wanted was for things to turn out the same way as they had with Shampoo, because he had knocked her out by accident. And there was no telling if the Devilukian would survive being hit by a train, so his conscience was a part of the decision-making process, too.

"Idiot!" He yelled at him. "It's dangerous to land there!"

"Dangerous?" Zastin questioned after he landed, looking smug. "Hmph. Do not get too excited. I will not fall for the same trick twice."

Before Ranma could say or do anything more, Zastin was plowed into by the train. The blow sent him spinning wildly into the air, until he landed and rolled into the perimeter wall of someone's home, where he slumped to the ground, motionless.

Ranma approached his prone form with both caution and concern, hoping that he wasn't dead and that it didn't count as his victory either way. Seeing the dog still alive and gnawing on his calf, he didn't know if that was a good enough measure by which to judge the man's condition.

Without warning, Zastin was on his feet and in his face with a primal roar, with blood gushing from head wounds and pouring down his face. Surprised, Ranma yelped and backpedaled away, which was fortunate for him because the sword was the next thing in motion and its wielder had seemingly gone berserk.

"I have not lost!" Zastin proclaimed, who swung his sword like a madman as he once again gave chase to a retreating boy who wore his hair in a pigtail.

"Give it a rest, already!" Ranma yelled back as he ran. He was just about at his wits end trying to find a solution to his predicament, so he could come out of it either in one piece or unattached maritally (and not for the first time).

Fortunately, Lala chose that time to intervene by sticking her foot out to trip Zastin, who fell flat on the ground. He was understandably upset when he got back up to his feet to confront his princess. "What are you doing, Lala-sama!?"

"You're being unfair," Lala accused. "You're Deviluke's number-one swordsman. You know very well that Ranma doesn't stand a chance against you."

From a short distance away, Ranma wiped his brow as he glared at the two aliens and thought, "As if that's the real issue."

"But, Lala-sama," Zastin tried to reason with the person in question, "marrying your highness means succeeding the Devilukian throne, becoming the king of Deviluke, and ruling over the numerous planets within its territory! A weakling does not deserve all of that!"

Ranma took offense to that last statement, and he felt himself becoming angry. A lot had happened to him that day, but perhaps the least volatile of them had finally pushed everything past the threshold of his tolerance. Not that those responsible for how he currently felt — that mainly being Lala — took notice as they continued to argue with each other.

"That's why," Zastin went on to explain, "his majesty gathered potential suitors from all over the Milky Way for you, Lala-sama!"

"I told you, I'm sick of it!" Lala retorted, as she got into Zastin's face. "Papa's more concerned about finding a proper successor than he is about me!"

Zastin wasn't about to back down in the defense of his liege. "No, that is not—"

"_Would you two just shut up!?_" Ranma suddenly screamed.

Lala and Zastin both turned to regard Ranma, whom they'd forgotten about. He was facing them with his feet parallel with his shoulders, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and his eyes staring daggers at them. Most notably, however, was the fact that he was surrounded by an angry-red aura of considerable size.

"You're not the only one being forced to marry someone!" Ranma informed Lala, as he felt the need to vent his long-suppressed feelings on the matter. "I never asked for or wanted any of it, but did my father listen to me? No! It's always about what he wants; it's okay to mess around with my life if it makes him happy. I shouldn't have to marry anyone until I'm ready, and I'm sure I love them. I... I just want the freedom to make my own choices and live my life the way I want to! Is that so much to ask!?"

By the end of his tirade, his aura had petered out and he was left panting a bit due to his latest exertion. With his mind now more clear, he was a little surprised by his outburst; though he knew that it would have only been a matter of time before he had shared those words with someone (if he had ever found someone to trust them with, that is). However, he hadn't known how else to avoid having yet another fiancée, other than by appealing to Lala as a fellow victim. As he regarded the recipients of his words, he really hoped that they had made the desired effect on them. Lala certainly seemed touched, but...

"Ranma..." Lala breathed, with a slight blush on her cheeks and admiration in her eyes. "I'm so happy."

Ranma looked at her with an incredulous expression on his face, wondering how he'd managed to get the opposite reaction to what he had wanted.

"Although you said that you don't love me," Lala continued with a small smile, and her hands clasped at her chest, "you actually understand my feelings so well. It's just like you said, Ranma: I want to be free to live my life as I please. There are so many things I want to try... And I want to choose my own partner in marriage, that's all."

Ranma remained quiet, not knowing where she was going with what she was saying. He hoped — of course — that it wouldn't involve anything in regard to having a relationship.

With a look of regret, Lala closed her eyes and kept going with what she wanted to say. "To be honest, I was only pretending I wanted to marry you so they couldn't force me to return and see more suitors."

"I knew it..." Peke thought to herself.

"But... Now I see clearly," Lala said, before she opened her eyes to gaze meaningfully at Ranma. "Getting married to you for real, Ranma, isn't such a bad idea." She shook her head and smiled. "No, that's not right: I _do_ want to marry you!"

Seeing that his efforts had managed to make things worse by making Lala's feelings for him real, Ranma began to panic a bit and wave an arm at her. "N-now, wait just a second!" Not being able to think of any other recourse, he turned his attention to the man responsible for getting her home. "Hey! Don't you have anything to say against this!?"

Much to Ranma's dismay, Zastin said, "I have lost, Earthling," as tears streamed down from his closed eyes and his raised hand was clenched with emotion. "On my honor, I have to disobey the orders of his majesty. I never noticed Lala-sama's feelings. No... I never acknowledged them before." His eyes clenched together more tightly. "You made me realize that. Indeed, I have lost."

He turned around and began to walk away from a devastated Ranma. "I do not know if Lala-sama's numerous fiancé candidates throughout the galaxy will consent to this, but I shall inform his majesty of this matter." He then ceased his movement and looked over his shoulder. "I am glad to leave her with you. As the only one truly capable of understanding Lala-sama... is you!"

Ranma watched as the man that should have been on his side of the matter began to recede into the distance, which included the dog that had been attached to his leg since his arrival. However, before long, Lala had stepped into view and took his hands, which had given him a bit of a start. When he tried to jerk away, he found her grip on his hands deceptively strong and resistant to his desire to put some distance between them.

Whether or not Lala noticed, she looked at him softly and said, "I won't force you to marry me." At which point Ranma's struggling ceased, who decided that it wouldn't hurt at that point to hear her out. "I know what it's like, but..." She began to look at him entreatingly. "You're the only one who hasn't shown interest in my papa's throne, or me for my body. That's why I can't see myself marrying anyone but you, so... Will you at least give me a chance?"

Ranma, after staring into Lala's eyes, soon found himself nodding his head without thinking. He'd like to think that he had been suckered by one of the many methods that girls used to manipulate guys, but he knew better. They were practically in the same boat, what with having fathers that had forced upon them obligations that were more for their own benefit than theirs. Besides, it wasn't like he was committing himself to anything that he couldn't back out of later, since she was only asking for a chance. Actually being given an option for once, instead of being forced, had to count for something.

Akane probably wouldn't be all that understanding, though...

In response to his answer, Lala squealed happily and gave him an enthusiastic hug, which quickly made him forget about that last thought. Regardless of the reason behind his decision, he simply couldn't deny the fact that he was in the arms of a very attractive girl. Things could have turned out far worse.

* * *

The next morning, Ranma awoke to the feeling of there being something strange in one of his hands. With a slight squeeze, he discovered that whatever was in his grasp was both round in shape and fairly yielding. Upon opening his eyes, he was surprised to find himself staring at Lala's sleeping visage. The sight might have been breathtaking if he hadn't needed to fear where his hand might be.

He began to sweat. "If Lala's here, then my hand might be..."

When he looked down, he was greatly relieved to find his hand cupping Peke's head instead of an intimate part of Lala's body. He returned his attention to Lala's face, and he couldn't help feeling attracted to her. Then he shook himself mentally, and he told himself that it wouldn't be wise to fall for her charms; he had enough problems as things were and he didn't need to add to them.

Slowly, carefully, he removed his hand from Peke's head and began to slide his way out of bed. Unfortunately, being as focused on the task as he was, he forgot that his bed wasn't as close to the floor/ground as it had usually been throughout most of his life, and the noise caused by his fall was enough to awaken the uninvited guests that he'd found in his bed.

Lala sat up and groaned deep in her throat as she performed a morning stretch, with the blanket falling away to reveal her nudity as a consequence. Beside her, Peke appeared more alert as she stood up and took in her surroundings, looking much the same as Ranma had last seen her when she had been in her humanoid form (with the sole exception being that he couldn't see her wings).

The Devilukian princess, still groggy, noticed a certain someone who was now sitting on the floor. "Ah... Mornin', Ranma."

"Why are you in my bed?" Ranma calmly but pointedly asked, with a frown on his face. "And naked, for that matter," he added. Not even Shampoo had gone that far. Fortunately (though some of his peers would have disagreed), he'd been exposed to more than enough female nudity that the mere sight normally didn't have much of an effect on him. Having a female body on occasion had something to do with it, too.

"Eh?" Lala replied, looking as if the answer should have been obvious. "But I wanted to sleep with you..."

Peke hung from her shoulder with one hand as she declared, "And it's difficult for me to stay as Lala-sama's costume all of the time!"

"Ranma?" Came the voice of said person's mother as the door opened. "Are you awake, yet?"

Ranma turned to look at his mother, who was now standing in his doorway. She glanced between him and the nude girl sitting on his bed before she smiled pleasantly and said, "Try not to be late for school, okay?"

After his mother closed the door behind her exit, he slapped a hand over his face and muttered, "This just isn't happening to me..."

"Oh, yeah!" Lala suddenly exclaimed, who seemed to be excited about something. "I have something to do, today!" She looked at her costume robot expectantly. "Peke?"

"Of course!" Was the response.

Before Ranma knew it, Lala was wearing Peke and flying out of his bedroom window. Before he could say anything, she stopped in mid-air, turned around to look back at him, and said, "I'll be out for a while, Ranma. See you later!"

"Hey... wait!" Ranma tried to call after her, but she was already flying away at a good clip and apparently hadn't heard him. He lowered his head and sighed, wondering what she could be up to since she was supposed to be new to Earth and he didn't know where she could or would need to go. Well, unless she was heading to a spaceship, or something like that...

Not seeing the point of dwelling on it any longer, he got up and went about his morning routine. As he did, he looked back on what had happened last night, after he and Lala had gotten back to his house. Over dinner, Lala had left nothing out when she had explained to his mother everything that had happened: from his accidental confession to her, how she had taken advantage of it, what had happened with Zastin (revealing that she was a princess to his mother in the process), how she'd had a change of heart, and — finally — that he'd agreed to give her a chance to marry him.

Later, his mother had taken him aside and had told him, "I know that you are in a difficult position, but making tough decisions is a part of being a man. I just want you to know that I would be proud of you even should you decide to make the worst possible choice, as opposed to not making a choice at all." Then she had smiled dreamily, with a faraway look in her eyes, and added, "Of course, with that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if you chose to become the king of the entire galaxy."

While his mother hadn't said it in so many words, or explicitly, he was pretty sure that becoming the king of the entire galaxy was the manliest thing that he — or any other man on Earth, for that matter — could possibly do, to her way of thinking. So it was little wonder why she hadn't been adverse to seeing Lala naked in his bed, and assuming the best-case scenario.

As he turned his thoughts toward Lala, and what he was going to do in regard to her, he barely had the presence of mind to say goodbye to his mother as he left the house for yet another day of school. After what had happened yesterday he wasn't exactly keen on going, but he didn't bother trying to get out of it since any excuse that he could make would only temporarily delay the inevitable.

* * *

Lala found herself standing before a small hut that was suspended by four palm trees on the school's roof. When she had asked to see the principal at the school's administration office, this was where she had been directed to go. Since she knew little about what was considered normal for Earthlings in general, she walked up the stairs and knocked on the door without a second thought.

"Come in!" Came an accented, masculine voice in response.

When she entered the hut, what she found inside was a very spartan office. Aside from a desk, and a chair for whoever sat behind it, there wasn't even a place for anyone else to sit. The only other thing to be found was the man who sat behind the desk, whose skin was deeply tanned and whose smiling facade was partially hidden by a pair of shades. By contrast, he wore bright and colorful attire, and what she assumed to be some festive hat in the shape of one of Earth's trees.

"'Ey, dere!" The man — whom she assumed was the principal — greeted her. "How can da big kahuna be helpin' you, keiki?"

It took Lala a few seconds to figure out exactly what he had said, though perhaps a bit too literally. "You're not the principal?"

The "big kahuna" laughed good-naturedly and slapped his knee. "O' course I am! It be takin' a big kahuna ta be a principal, yeah!"

"Oh, I see," Lala replied, who smiled at having found her quarry. "I was told to see you if I wanted to attend your school."

"Is dat so?" The principal replied, who now appeared to be keenly interested in his guest even as his easygoing smile transitioned into a grin that would have worried most onlookers. "But dun you know dem school rules?"

Lala cocked her head to the side and tried to think if Ranma's mother had ever mentioned anything about rules. When she couldn't recall any, she asked, "Rules?"

A corner of the principal's shades glinted in the light. "Fo' a sistah ta be becomin' a student in dis school, she be needin' ta get dat bowl cut!"

"Okay!" Lala readily acquiesced.

The principle looked disappointed and lifted his arms at the elbows, with the palms of his hands up, as he shook his head. "Oh, dat's too—" Then it registered to him that she hadn't disagreed with him. But he had to make sure, so he asked, "You okay wit it?"

Lala smiled and nodded her head. "Mm-hm!"

The principal stood up from his chair on shaky legs and took said chair with him to Lala, where she sat down after he had given her a gesture to do so. Then he had her remove her hat, which she held in her lap so Peke didn't return to her humanoid form, thus leaving her naked. Finally, he pulled out a pair of scissors and the hollowed-out half of a coconut, with the latter being placed on her head.

As he slowly moved the scissors toward Lala's long, pink tresses, his hand shook. He hesitated before he made his first cut, fearing that there might be some kind of trick, but nothing happened other than a lock of hair falling to the floor. It was the same for the next cut, then the next, and soon tears of joy were pouring out from behind his shades as he went about his work with confidence. When he had cut the exposed hair short enough, he took out an electric razor and shortened it the rest of the way, down to the scalp.

When Lala stood and turned to face him, and noticed his tears, she regarded him with some concern. "Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?"

The principal removed his shades, wiped his eyes, and collected himself as he put his shades back on. "Sorry, keiki. I jus' being so happy." He returned his attention to her with a determined expression on his face. "Fo' bein' such a good keiki, dis big kahuna gon' help you git evahthing sitchidated, yeah!"

With that said, he rushed her to the administration office, where he took a personal hand in getting Lala registered for school. In fact, she could start that very morning, granted that she had a school uniform — which, technically, she did. The principal had also allowed her to choose which class she would be in, and — with the knowledge that Ranma's mother had given her — she had chosen 2-F.

It wasn't until the principal had left her, and she was free to make her way to the classroom that she had chosen, that she was able to check her new hairdo in a bathroom mirror. In her opinion, it looked somewhat okay so long as she wasn't wearing her hat, which was the main reason for why she wanted her hair the way it used to be instead of having it stay the way it now was. Well, she'd given it a chance, so she didn't see anything wrong with changing it back.

Fortunately, she had a quick and easy way to make her hair long (and even) again. She took out her D-Dialer and summoned a helmet-shaped device, which — like Pyon-pyon Warp-kun — had a rabbit theme to it, and included a pair of rabbit-like ears. She had named this invention "Snip-snip Hairdo-kun."

After her hair was back to the way it used to be, and she had Peke scan the girl's school uniform so she could take on its form, she left the bathroom and continued on her way, looking like a student who belonged to Furinkan high school. Instead of being a hat, Peke had become an oval-shaped hair clip, in order to better suit the uniform that she had become.

* * *

Ranma did his best to ignore the tension in the room, and whatever anyone might have been murmuring between themselves. Aside from Akane ignoring him, he was almost certain that half of his classmates were glaring at him, or at least staring — including Ukyo. He'd love to explain everything to all of them, but Akane wasn't in the mood to listen to him and he highly doubted that he'd get very far with anyone else because they would likely jump to some stupid conclusion before he could finish, thus preventing him from putting everything into proper context. Of course, now that the situation had changed from how it had been yesterday, and he'd agreed to give Lala a chance to marry him, he highly doubted that anyone would be understanding even if they did allow him to say everything that needed to be said — Akane and Ukyo, in particular.

Telling Nabiki was out. Even with the prospect of making money off the information, he doubted that she would sell it without phrasing something that could be misinterpreted in a way that would no doubt cause him grief. Considering how Tatewaki had attacked him upon arrival, shouting something about freeing his infernal thrall from serving such as himself (before he'd kicked him into unconsciousness), there was no telling what Nabiki had said for him to come to that kind of conclusion.

The only good thing was that, despite whatever his father may have heard (concerning himself and Lala), it hadn't been enough to get him near his wife. Unfortunately, that probably wouldn't stop his father from catching him when school was let out. However, even if — for some reason — he didn't bother to do that, there was little doubt in his mind that his father would race back home to confront him and his wife if he ever learned about Lala living in the same house as him.

It was all very troublesome... And since he really wasn't in any mood to deal with his father, he considered trying to avoid him when he made his way back home after school. He'd feel a lot better explaining things when he was ready, and on his own terms. He'd also like to do the same with Akane and Ukyo, since it was a matter best attended to in private instead of at school.

He turned his attention to the front of the room, when the door opened and a child — possibly a young teenager — began to walk toward the lectern at the head of the class. Since the principal was spiteful, and Ninomiya still intended to reform him somehow, she was also the homeroom and English teacher for his second year. Not that he really minded anymore, since she was usually nothing more than a minor nuisance every now and again.

Once Ninomiya was behind the lectern, she cleared her throat to quiet the class before she said, "This was rather sudden, but it seems that we have a new transfer student."

Ranma, who was now staring at the still-open doorway, thought, "It couldn't be..."

Ninomiya turned to look in the same direction and asked, "Won't you come in and introduce yourself?"

"Okay!" Came the bubbly reply.

"It is," Ranma groaned inwardly, having recognized the voice.

In her excitement, Lala knocked Ninomiya out from behind the lectern before she cheerfully shouted, "Woo-hoo! Ranma! Now I'm a student at this school, too!"

Ranma began to sweat as a renewed yet more intense and hostile feeling of being watched began to impose itself upon his senses. Underneath his desk, he crossed his fingers and hoped that she didn't mention anything about her living arrangement.

"My name is Lala Satalin Deviluke," said person gladly shared with the class, "and Ranma and his mother were nice enough to let me live with them!"

There was a great outcry upon hearing that, with the loudest among them being Akane and Ukyo. All around him Ranma could feel the heat of rage and the chill of killing intent, and his danger sense was going crazy as it tried and failed to alert him in a way that was fitting to the amount of danger that he now found himself in. But it didn't need to tell him what he already knew.

He was a dead man.


End file.
